Sri Lanka’s two main ethnic groups — the the greater part Sinhalese and the minority Tamils — have long experienced a contentious, violent partnership that’s witnessed civil wars and ethnic cleaning woven into the island nation’s brutal history. Dissimilarities in religion, language and politics have pushed a wedge involving the two, but food, like it so typically does, has played a unifying purpose. Or at the very least attempted to.
It can be tempting to say that Tamil cuisine has been seriously influenced by the flavors of South India (Tamil Nadu in certain) though Sinhalese cookery incorporates flavors released by the Dutch and Portuguese, but that would be an oversimplification.
“Tamil foodstuff tends to be on the hotter facet in comparison to Sinhalese,” says observed Toronto-primarily based, Sri Lankan-born food writer Suresh Doss. “But there is certainly extra use of roasted spices in Sinhalese cuisine — specially black pepper — and lesser use of oil. You can find a visible vibrancy as a result of this. That reported, it is essential to recognize that there is been fairly a bit of osmosis amongst the cultures more than time.”
That culinary intermingling is on whole exhibit at Banana Leaf in East Orlando, purported to be Florida’s only Sri Lankan restaurant by Nilanga Dassanayake, the affable Sinhalese owner of the restaurant. In fact, Sri Lankans from Fort Myers to Fort Pierce to Fort Lauderdale make the travel to this cozy South Alafaya Trail location to partake in a buffet ($20.99) that seems to be without doubt lively — red rice, green eggplant curry, blue mackerel, yellow potato curry.
On a single weekend stop by, a spicy pork curry sat upcoming to a roasted hen curry with dried pandan leaves. There ended up tempered chickpeas, papadums and a jackfruit curry as well. But buffets can be hit-or-miss out on, and this a person fell somewhere in concerning — the eggplant and jackfruit had been hits, but I’m not necessarily generating a 3-hour push to sample the pork, rooster or fish, fine though they ended up.
What I hoped to see was a thick liver fry or a wholly gratifying egg curry of the type Doss and I not too long ago scarfed down with crepe-like coconut hoppers at New Kalyani, a humble minor eatery in Scarborough. “We are not featuring hoppers just nevertheless,” claims Dassanayake. “They acquire a prolonged time to make, but we will just one day.”
Right until then, Banana Leaf’s kothu roti ($16.99) is all set for the getting. This looker will come stacked with a generous tossing of chopped-up bits of roti, hen (our decision), scrambled eggs, onions, scallions, leeks, and a host of spices and chilies. Cabbage and carrots lend a healthy crunch, and it is really straightforward to see why it really is the most well known road food items in Sri Lanka.
Also superb: a veg roti meal ($11.99) comprising two flaky paratha, creamy daal created with coconut milk, and seeni sambal, a heady, spicy relish of caramelized onions. Does not get a lot far more comforting than that, no make a difference your ethnicity.
The biryani ($15.99) was not just about anything like I envisioned. Sure, it is a rice dish, but it really is offered a lot more like a ramen bowl, with condiments and sides — pineapple curry, eggplant, cashew curry and fish cutlet ball — placed all-around the perimeter of the bowl and a fried egg split in fifty percent set more than rice. I ordered it with beef ($17.99), which, like the chicken and mutton, are halal. That tends to make Banana Leaf a attract for an additional of Sri Lanka’s ethnic minorities — Muslims.
I tried using the mutton (chewy, fatty) in curry form ($16.99) on one more visit with pol roti, a rustic flatbread fashioned from flour and shredded coconut, but I cannot say I was a enthusiast of the dry, biscuity texture. Ghodhamba roti fared a little bit better. The dough is soaked in oil in advance of being stretched and cooked. On my to start with take a look at here, I spoke to my buddy of the egg roti I savored at New Kalyani — a cook dinner wielding a few of scrapers swiftly chopped and tossed a spiced egg combination right before scooping it all into an massive roti currently being griddled upcoming to the egg the roti was then folded and cut into triangular wedges. I nonetheless crave that egg roti, and so I requested Banana Leaf’s edition ($5). The situation: not more than enough egg combination in the roti (yes, I know about the rate of eggs these times) and parts of the roti were also thick, and undercooked.
However, there is quite a little bit far more on the menu I might like to attempt in this article, like the black pork curry ($15.99) made from black pepper, toasted coconut and roasted curry powder, and dried sprats ($15.99) fried in tomatoes and onions.
Greek yogurt with a drizzle of palm treacle made a beautifully satisfactory ending from the buffet, specially with sips of arrack ($10), a Sri Lankan spirit distilled from the fermented sap of coconut flowers. Not to be outdone, Dassanayake arrived by and played up an ending called “really like cake” ($5). “It usually takes 3 hours to make and it truly is the only factor I do not share,” he states.
I am a sucker for a great profits pitch, and I was marketed. And the enjoy cake, with its honey, semolina, egg whites and cashews? Considerably like the menu, it was a several-splendored factor.
Location Details
Banana Leaf